During MWC 2019, OPPO announced that it would work with Qualcomm to launch its first smartphone using the Snapdragon 855 processor and the Snapdragon X50 connectivity chip.5G connected mobile phone products, and it is confirmed that it will be launched in the second quarter of this year. In addition to OPPO, Xiaomi, LG, and Sony Mobile also successively displayed their 5G connected mobile phones during this exhibition. OnePlus, which previously announced that it would cooperate with Qualcomm to build 5G connected mobile phones, and ZTE also displayed their prototype designs during MWC 2019, but it is expected that they will also launch mobile phone products with actual 5G connection functions within this year.
The current solution proposed by Qualcomm is to achieve 855G connectivity through the Snapdragon 50 processor and the Snapdragon X5 connectivity chip. The third-generation 5G connectivity chip, which is expected to be launched as early as next year, will be integrated with the new processor in the form of SoC, allowing the new 5G connected mobile phone to be built in a thinner and lighter form, while also ensuring the use of a larger battery capacity design or better body heat dissipation performance.
However, judging from the current designs of mobile phones from various manufacturers, including OPPO's 3G connected mobile phone prototype design that can play the AAA game "Soulcalibur VI" with real-time streaming at the Qualcomm booth, and the Galaxy S6 5G connected version that will be launched in the second quarter of this year, the thickness is almost halved compared to the 10G connected mobile phone reference design proposed by Qualcomm earlier, and the appearance design does not appear "rough".
Although there are not many telecom operators providing 5G network services in the early stage, and the corresponding coverage of the service is not wide at present, it is expected that the 5G networked mobile phones launched in the second quarter of this year may only be used in 4G LTE form in many cases, and only in specific situations can they access the Internet at high speed through the 5G network.
However, with the continued promotion of telecom operators in various regions, it is expected that the service coverage will be expanded in 2020 and more users will be attracted to join the 5G network service. It is also expected that the price of 5G networked mobile phones will become affordable after next year due to popularization. At the same time, 5G network charges will be reduced as the number of users continues to increase. However, in the initial stage of implementation, the charges will inevitably be high and the price of 5G networked mobile phones will not be affordable.
Qualcomm and other manufacturers believe that these situations have actually been experienced in the past during the transition from 2G to 3G and from 3G to 4G, but they believe that the "pain period" from 4G to 5G will be relatively short. The reason is that a considerable proportion of 5G network technology is based on existing 4G network technology. For example, through the multi-phase carrier aggregation mode, 4G network signals can be combined to achieve performance close to 5G connection speeds. At the same time, 5G network technical specifications also include the need to be backward compatible with 4G and even 3G network technical specifications.
On the other hand, telecom operators are also beginning to use 5G network sharing devices promoted by manufacturers such as Inseego and HTC to promote 5G network services to more users, allowing existing 4G network-connected mobile phones to use 5G network resources through Wi-Fi connection. This will also help popularize the use of 5G network services when the average price of 5G network-connected mobile phones is still relatively high and the number of options is limited, thereby making 5G network services a mainstream application in the market in a faster time.
